AI marches on, stepping over businesses

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) is taking over businesses all over the world.

This has shown up in the latest Udemy Global Learning and Skills Trends report.

There are now 14 new Gen AI enrolments on the Udemy platform every minute. This is in addition to a 98% increase in demand for AI ethics courses year on year.

More extraordinarily, companies learning on Microsoft CoPilot surged 3400%.

Peter Kokkinos, the vice-president and managing director Asia Pacific for Udemy said there has been a tremendous growth across all AI technologies. It’s continuing to grow and have an impact on business in a significant way. 

“It’s not surprising. I’m lucky enough to meet hundreds of organisations around the world and what you’re seeing is different levels of maturity in AI,” Mr Kokkinos told Talking Business.

“Some organisations are full steam ahead. I think what we saw in the past was that some companies are trialling AI in pockets of their business.

“What we are seeing now is large scale and full-scale implementations of AI across all parts of their businesses, whether it be through performance improvement tools, or embedding it into their technologies or how they interact with their customers,” Mr Kokkinos said.

“Organisations that aren’t upskilling in those technologies risk falling behind their competitors.

“The impact of AI is going to change the way we go to market, it’s going to change the way we approach our work every day.

“If we don’t get it right, and we don’t educate our users around responsible use of AI, that’s where the risk is. Using it inappropriately could have a significant risk on a business.”

That said, Mr Kokkinos believes that while a lot of the assessments of humans is done by machines, taking humans out of the equation is a “dangerous proposition”.

However, it can play a significant role in all sorts of human interaction in the workplace, including staff appraisals using role play tools.

Mr Kokkinos said people learning how to develop critical thinking skills when combined with AI allowed them to differentiate.

“I don’t think it’s around learning how to use the tool but learning how to use the tool in a way that makes you more effective,” he said.

“And when you think about it, critical thinking is really where you’re going to differentiate yourself from the next individual.

“If AI tools can perform the menial tasks for you in your job, they can do it for everybody. So how do you differentiate yourself? It’s realty going to be around your leadership skills,” Mr Kokkinos said.

“AI is not going to replace leadership skills. People still want to be led by leaders who are empathetic and caring and thoughtful.

“And being able to make decisions on how and when to use those tools in the appropriate way through critical thinking is going to be the differentiator.”

Mr Kokkinos said learning how to use AI was now critical for everyone at work.

“AI is no longer considered just a tech skill,” he said.

“It’s now embedded across all functions of organisations, be it in marketing, sales, finance, and HR operations. 

“It’s now considered a workplace necessity.

“Like knowing how to use a computer 30 years ago.”

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-39-interview-with-peter-kokkinos-from-udemy

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